Rainbow
by Fortitudine
Summary: A blue-eyed charmer has the Kid wrapped around her little fingers.


**Rainbow**

_Let no one who loves be unhappy; even love unreturned has its rainbow. _(James Barrie)

It was a dark and stormy night, and it seemed like a sharp, cold wind had followed us all the way up from the Rio Grande. We sat on our horses and looked at the dirty little shack, squattin' on the canyon floor with a light shinin' from the one window. The sign nailed crooked to the front announced it was the 'Ramble Inn' and there was plenty of bullet holes decoratin' it.

"Can't be choosy, Kid," said Heyes.

I hunched my shoulders deeper in my coat.

"Fixin' to rain again."

The heat and the smell hit us as soon as we got through the door. Inside was a long room with a bar across one end, and a table and some chairs pulled up close to a Franklin stove. Another room opened off the back. A fat man nodded behind the bar, not even wakin' up when Heyes banged the door shut, and a woman was sittin' at the table drinkin' a cup of coffee. She gave us a tired smile and a "howdy, boys."

"Evenin', ma'am," said Heyes, always polite. "I don't suppose there's some of that hot coffee for a coupla weary travelers?"

"Sure thing, stranger. Beef an' beans, too, if y'r hungry."

We was. It didn't look like the place ran to sleepin' rooms, but for the price of the meal they'd let us stay by the fire and doze until sunup. And after a few minutes the smell kinda grew on you.

We shucked our coats and hung 'em by the door, and Heyes walked stiff-legged over to the stove to warm up his hands. I took a look around. The door to the back room was half-open and I heard the woman movin' around in there, and speakin' to somebody. I noticed that whoever it was didn't seem to be answerin'.

I loosened the Colt in my damp holster and joined Heyes. There was a box over to one side of the stove with a blanket over it, and somethin' in there moved. I figured it was a dog. I like dogs. I bent over the box and snapped my fingers, and the blanket was pulled to one side and a kid looked up at me.

I got down on one knee for a better look. "Hey, sis," I said, real soft, so's not to scare her. She wasn't much more'n a baby, and she smiled at me all sleepy. Her hair was the color of molasses candy in the lamplight and it hung tangled around her dirty face.

The woman came back in with a tray full of food and coffee, and set it out on the table. I got up and turned my attention to fillin' the hole in my middle.

Heyes grinned at me over his cup. "Hungry?"

"A mite. My stomach was beginnin' to think my throat was cut."

The foot was hot, at least, and the coffee was pretty good. My clothes was startin' to dry out and my feet began to feel less like chunks of ice and more like they was part of me again. I loosened the Colt one more time-wet leather makes for a slow draw-and relaxed. It wasn't much of a place, but we were warm, and under a roof, and outside I could hear the rain startin' up.

Somethin' wrapped itself around my legs, down low near the knees. It was the kid. She smiled up at me and she had the bluest eyes I ever saw. "Papa?"

"Don't mind her foolishness," the woman said quickly. "She asks pretty near every man comes in here if he's her pa."

I picked her up and she put her head down on my shoulder like it belonged there. "How old are you, sis?"

Her little face puckered up with thinkin' and then she held up three grubby fingers.

"Three years old? You're a real big girl. What's your name?"

"Daisy."

"Pleased to meet you, Daisy. I guess you better call me Uncle Thaddeus."

She thought about that for a second and then said "Papa!"

I could feel Heyes' eyes on me and I knew he was laughin'.

"She ain't mine," the woman told us. "Her ma's in back. She's dyin'."

I put my hand over Daisy's ears, but she'd burrowed down into my shirt front and closed her eyes. Even if she could understand, I don't think she heard.

"Friend of yours?"

The woman shook her head. "Got put off a wagon passin' by here three days ago. She tol' me she was tryin' to find the kid's pa. She's real sick-she'll be gone by mornin'. You boys happen to be headed for Ruidoso? That's where the pa is s'posed to be."

Her face got a sly look on it. "I can't make the trip, but I'll pay two dollars t'anybody takes her off my hands."

I got up and went into the back room. Daisy's ma was on a pallet shoved against the wall, lyin' awful still, her body wasted away to the bones and the skin stretched tight over her thin face. I touched her hand, and I knew she was dead.

"Tell your ma goodbye, sis," I said quietly to the little girl curled up on my shoulder.

On the floor beside her was a envelope with some papers spillin' out. I picked it up, and the first thing that fell into my hand was a photograph of a young couple. The man was flashy dressed and good-lookin', and his eyes was too close together. The woman looked trustin' and happy, and hung onto his arm in a way that told me everythin' I needed to know about the two of them. On the back was neatly written _Mr. and Mrs. James Patterson, Albuquerque, July 17th, 1879._

I come back out and told the woman, "She's gone."

She shrugged. Didn't make no difference to her.

"We'll bury her for you in the mornin', if you want—before we start. Has the kid got any gear?"

Heyes got a look on his face like I'd hit him upside the head. He pulled me to one side, out of earshot. "Have you gone crazy? We ain't takin' her with us! You an' me can't take care of a baby like that."

"You think these people can? I ain't leavin' her behind."

He can almost always talk me into, or out of, just about anythin', but this time I dug in my heels. The landlady sure wasn't goin' to mind her none, and Daisy wasn't big enough to watch out for herself. She'd sicken, or wander off into the desert, or get caught in the crossfire during some gunplay, and that would be the end of her little life.

I played my hole card. "Heyes, when our folks died, couldn't you and me have used a helpin' hand?"

His face got dark, rememberin'.

"And we was a lot older'n Daisy. If we ride out without her I won't be able to live with myself, and neither will you."

I was right, and he knew it. "Besides, Ruidoso ain't that far. Two, three days at most."

He shook his head. "Have it your way, Kid. But you're buyin' into a mess of somebody else's worry."

We learned our first lesson in kid-mindin' right off, next day when we was saddlin' the horses. Heyes' sorrel noticed that my partner wasn't givin' his full attention to the chore and stepped sideways onto his foot. Hard.

"Son of a bitch!"

"Sumabits!" said Daisy. Heyes' jaw dropped.

I glared at him. "You watch your mouth!"

He started sputterin'. "Hell, Kid-"

"Hell, Kid!" Daisy repeated, a big smile on her face.

"You was sayin', Mr. Smith?"

He was so mad he shut up for almost a whole half hour. I could see that travellin' with Daisy had its advantages.

When we come across a waterhole later that day, I got off and lifted her down. "You go rustle us up enough wood for a fire," I told Heyes. "I need to heat some water."

His eyebrows pulled together. "What for?"

"In case you ain't noticed, Mr. Smith, she's filthy."

"In case you ain't noticed, Mr. Jones, we're filthy, too!"

"We're grownups. We're allowed."

He stomped off, grumblin'. But I noticed he was careful not to cuss.

Ever try to give a wiggly little girl a bath usin' a coffeepot full of hot water and a bandanna? Holdin' on to a wet baby is a chore, let me tell you. Greased pigs ain't in it. Heyes had to go off and lie down, he was laughin' so hard.

I got the last laugh 'cos I stole his last clean undershirt for her. I had to saw the sleeves off with his straight razor, but once she was clean and dressed she looked real nice. Exceptin' her hair. Some of the tangles was so bad I had to cut them out and I made kind of a mess.

"Gimme that." Heyes took the razor away from me. "She looks like she went six rounds with a McCormick reaper. Hold her still now, so's I don't slice her ears off accidental."

He trimmed her curls into somethin' a little more presentable, and I used the last of our soap to wash her clothes so they'd be clean for her to wear the next day. I figured Heyes' undershirt wasn't goin' to stay white very long.

That night I rolled up by the fire with Daisy tucked in next to me and we was both so wore out we fell asleep while Heyes was still talkin' to us. I woke to her little hands pattin' my face.

"Papa?"

"Mornin', Daisy." I yawned and looked over to where Heyes was pourin' himself a cup of coffee.

"Kid," he said, and he sounded worried, "We got some canned cow and biscuits left, but once that's gone, what are we gonna feed her?"

Damned if I knew. This bein' a pa-even if it was only for a few days-was goin' to be harder'n I thought.

Still, havin' Daisy was a joy. Four or five years ago there was a Southerner rode with the gang for a while, and he used more fancy words than any other man I'd ever met, includin' Heyes. When he was pleased with somethin'-like gettin' his hands on some real Kentucky bourbon-he called it "a boon and a benison." My partner explained to me what it meant, and I'd forgot about it.

Until now. Her soft breathin' was a boon and a benison as she lay in my blankets each night, and watchin' her sing baby songs to herself or play with some pretty bit of leaf or pebble I found for her, made me all light and easy inside. I hadn't been around kids since I was a kid myself, but it felt, well...right, somehow.

And it started me thinkin' on things I shouldn't, at least not until we got our amnesty. Things like a house with a woman in it, waitin' for me with a baby in her arms and supper on the table. It was a dream that gnawed at me, and one that seemed further and further off every passin' day.

When we finally got to Ruidoso, Heyes started checkin' the saloons while I waited in the street, Daisy warm and safe inside my coat. It didn't take him long to find James Patterson.

"Deals blackjack at the 'Desert Rose,'" Heyes said, pointin' it out.

He was waitin' for us at a table, and I liked him in person even less than in his photograph. He was a weasel, plain and simple, and it was hard to believe him and that pitiful wreck of a woman back at the Ramble Inn together had made somethin' as sweet as Daisy.

He told us straight off he didn't want her. Heyes turned loose that silver tongue of his, but Patterson wasn't havin' any part of it.

"I got no use for a kid!" He smirked. "Maybe if she was older-"

He looked at her sittin' on my knee with the light shinin' on her pretty little head, and you could tell what he was thinkin'. It was like seein' somethin' filthy and vile crawl out from under a rock, and I was as close as I ever want to come to beatin' a man to death with my bare hands.

"Not hardly." It wasn't me what spoke, it was Heyes, and I could tell he was thinkin' the same. "Mister, I wouldn't leave a dyin' cat with you. Let's go, Thaddeus," and he turned on his heel.

We walked out with Daisy noddin' off in my arms, the two of us not sayin' anythin'. We had enough cash for a hotel room and supper, but tomorrow it would be trail chow and sleepin' under the stars again, and it was gettin' too cold out at night now for a little girl. I started to think that even an orphanage would be better for her than bein' hungry and cold-hell no, it wouldn't. There's crueler ways of killin' a kid than starvin' her to death. I told myself that as long as I was still up on my hind paws and could beg, borrow, or steal enough food to put in front of her, Daisy wasn't goin' to no orphanage.

But I was hopin' Heyes had a plan, 'cos I was feelin' desperate and the bank at the end of the street was startin' to look awful good to me, amnesty or no amnesty.

My partner stopped so sudden I almost bumped into him.

"I've got it. Sarah Henderson."

"What?"

"Amity City's only about hundred miles from here, Kid-we'll take her to Mrs. Henderson!"

"And do what, exactly, once we get there?" I remembered Sarah Henderson from when we helped her brother Jim Stokely out on a little matter of a murder charge, but how Heyes could put two and two together and come up with her name was beyond me. But then, his mind works in mysterious ways.

"Listen, Kid." He lifted his hand and gave it that little waggle he always does when he's tryin' to convince me of somethin'. "She's a nice lady, she's got lots of money, and she's a widow with no kids."

"So?"

"So we take Daisy to her and ask for her help. I got instincts about women. Once Mrs. Henderson gets a look at her, our troubles will be over." He grinned at me, all confidence.

"You're always sayin' our troubles will be over, Heyes, but somehow we never seem to get that lucky. And if I remember right, your instincts weren't much good with Sarah Henderson, last time."

"C'mon, Kid-she owes us!"

That ride to Amity City seemed like the longest I ever made. The nights were bitter cold and our food gave out. Me and Heyes was livin' on coffee, and while Daisy done all right eatin' what was left of the beans, cooked soft and mashed up with our last canned tomatoes, I knew she needed better. I would've shot the Governor for a can of condensed milk and some bread and butter.

When we topped the last rise and saw the Henderson place up ahead, I felt like the weight of the whole world was off my shoulders. Even if Heyes was wrong about Mrs. Henderson, no decent woman was goin' to turn a little girl away. Tonight, at least, Daisy would be warm and fed, and I'd worry about tomorrow when it got here.

Mrs. Henderson spotted us comin' and was waitin' out on the porch when we rode up. She was smilin', at least until I started to come up the steps and my coat fell open, and she saw Daisy.

She went dead white and Heyes put out a hand to take her arm.

"Mrs. Henderson?"

"What...who is she?"

Heyes started explainin'.

"Joshua," I cut him off. "_Shut up_." For once, he done it.

I ain't never begged for anythin' in my life, but for Daisy I was ready to get down on my knees, if I had to.

"We brung her here 'cos we didn't know what else to do, ma'am. Nobody wants her, exceptin' maybe me, and I ain't a fit person to care for her. I've got real fond of her but she needs a proper home, and warm clothes, and good food. We was hopin'-"

I stopped. Mrs. Henderson's eyes had a shine to them, like she was holdin' the tears back.

"Did...did you know that I had a daughter, Mr. Jones?" Her voice was sweet and soft as I remembered, but edged with sorrow. "She died just before her second birthday. Henry...my husband doted on her. Sometimes I think that was one of the reasons he started drinking."

I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Henderson, truly I am. It just seemed like the answer to a prayer with you bein' so close by-"

"Maybe it was." She smiled a trembly smile and held out her arms. "May I hold her?"

I hesitated. "She's not real clean, Mrs. Henderson. I tried-"

"I know you did, Mr. Jones. Please-give her to me?"

Handin' over that sleepin' child and walkin' away was like leavin' a piece of me behind. Mrs. Henderson wanted us to stay-she offered supper and beds in the bunkhouse for the night, and Heyes opened his mouth to say yes but I reckon what he saw in my face stopped him. If I had to part with Daisy—and I didn't really have no choice—it was goin' to be bad enough without draggin' it out.

We rode out of there and I didn't look back.

_Another _Dark and Stormy Night_ challenge entry, very slightly tweaked (I gave Heyes a few more lines)._


End file.
